Pittsburgh will either get cash considerations in return from the Friars or a player to be named later.

In a span of nine months, Tallet has been with the Cardinals, Blue Jays, Bucs and now Padres. The Oklahoma City native has a 4.79 career ERA in over 240 major-league appearances. He will function as organizational relief depth this year for San Diego.

As part of July’s eight-player swap with the Blue Jays that was headlined by Colby Rasmus and Edwin Jackson the Cardinals received three players to be named later or cash considerations.

Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com reports that St. Louis has opted for cash instead of players in all three instances, although the exact dollar amounts are undisclosed.

Obviously the players to be named later were never going to be much more than marginal prospects, but it’s still somewhat surprising to see a team choose money over multiple minor leaguers.

Perhaps the players/cash choice was tied in part to the Cardinals’ performance following the trade and winning the World Series meant they basically told the Blue Jays to forget about sending them anyone else. St. Louis certainly isn’t short on money after letting Albert Pujols walk.

According to Marlon A. Walker of the Post-Dispatch, a man in St. Louis was arrested this summer for attempting to cash a $2,000 check on a Regions Bank account belonging to left-handed reliever Brian Tallet and his wife Natalie.

Tallet posted a rough 8.31 ERA and 10/7 K/BB ratio in 13 1/3 innings for the Cardinals this past season before being shipped to Toronto in a late-July trade involving young center fielder Colby Rasmus.

The man, a 21-year-old James Deal Cole, was charged with one count of forgery. Here’s more from the Post-Dispatch:

Cole told authorities he had been approached by a man in a landscaping company truck while begging for money in St. Louis. The man, who Cole said identified himself as Brian Tallet, wrote Cole a check and offered him a job doing some landscaping work over the summer. Cole said the man wrote a $2,000 check, telling Cole to keep $1,500 and give the other $500 back.

Brian Tallet, who finished the 2011 season in Toronto and is now a free agent, told authorities he never met Cole, nor did he hire the man for work.